The Trailer Park Boys pose in front of a nice hotel in a somewhat dodgy Toronto neighbourhood -- family court a few doors away, homeless shelters a few blocks down.
That part, at least, seems right.
And two out of every three cars bombing down Jarvis Street have someone leaning out the window screaming "Hey Bubbles!" or "F----- A, Ricky!"
Robb Wells (Ricky), John Paul Tremblay (Julian) and Mike Smith (Bubbles) are game even if they are tired and hung-over (they'd been up reuniting with their number one fan and guest star, Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson).
The attention bodes well for the movie Trailer Park Boys: Countdown To Liquor Day, ostensibly the final farewell to Halifax's pot-growing, jailbird legends -- Ricky, Bubbles and Julian.
It occurs, watching the commotion, that if these guys were this famous anywhere but Canada, they'd be stinking rich. After all, doesn't the first Trailer Park Boys movie hold the record for biggest domestic opening weekend by a Canadian movie ever?
"Yes," says director Mike Clattenburg, "$1.3 million, which we owed to our investors. People hear 'hit TV show' and they think Friends, and a million an episode. This is Canada. Believe me, none of us are millionaires."
Countdown To Liquor Day begins, as all Trailer Park Boys stories must, with release from jail. There they discover the fabled Sunnyvale Trailer Park deserted, its inhabitants moved to a shiny, new development owned and operated by the malevolent, no-longer-closeted and no-longer-drinking Mr. Lahey (John Dunsworth) and his toady/lover Randy (Patrick Roach).
This disturbance in the Trailer Park Boys' universe turns relationships upside down. Ricky and Julian fall out. So do white-rapper J-Roc (Jonathan Torrens) and his DJ Tyrone (Tyrone Parsons), and Lahey and Randy.
So what's next for the boys?
How about a series called The Drunk And On Drugs Happy Funtime Hour?
The pilot -- "about a kids' show gone horribly wrong" -- is to shoot in the spring with, yes, Alex Lifeson in the cast.
As well, Tremblay, Wells and Smith say they're set to play six different roles each, "with a lot of heavy prosthetics," Tremblay says.
